The Blue Parrot
I went to a used bookstore in Takadanobaba on Sunday called The Blue Parrot. It’s apparently a pretty well known used English bookstore in Tokyo. A friend of my mine at work mentioned it to me and I finally got around to checking it out. I was lucky to find they were having a half-off sale last weekend. The place is a pretty tiny, cramped space with three aisles of various books. It has a typical small, alternative bookstore, hipster vibe to it. There was a flip-flop wearing clerk with an earring and a middle-aged story-telling bald writer loitering and telling stories for a better part of an hour while the clerk ooh-ed and aah-ed.
I browsed the stacks, which had all the usual book sections: sci-fi, fantasy, classics, general lit, self help, non-fiction, travel, as well as Japanese text books and the like. There’s a 100 yen bargain bin with nothing in it that I wanted. Most books seem to be about 500 yen so I got two for that since there was a sale. There’s some good stuff, but the things that jumped out at me out of the multitude of books were one’s I’ve read already. I ended up getting this old copy of Brave New World from 1936. I like old books much more than new ones because they have a nice lived-in feel. This one has some notes in French. I also got a nice yellow-paged copy of Wind, Sand and Stars by Antoine de Saint-Exupery. It’s an abstract and magical account of his days as an aviator in the French postal service—or so far it is, I’ve only just started.
I used to love a brand new hardcovers with crisp pages and a sexy binding, but as time went on and I got poorer I decided to stop wasting money on new books when a used one reads just the same. Then I found that the used ones read better since the pages are darker and easier on the eyes. I gave up the hardcovers for mass paperbacks since they fit in my pocket and are easily concealed. And nowadays I search for the oldest edition, particularly for sci-fi, as they usually have fantastical covers originally painted by hand (my copy of Solaris has a beautifully surreal depiction of the colloid planet). I also love when an old book has someone’s notes in it, or better yet a dedication. A copy of Siddhartha I own has a note inside the cover. It reads: To Grant, To feel. Love, Barb —dated 1/1/77.
A new book is just a book. But an old book has a life of it’s own to me. It’s not just another copy.
